Sunday, April 21, 2013

Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country

Today we participated in the major clean up day on our island. I explained to the boys that an American president once said: Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. And this also applied to things such as voluntary community service which you can actually participate in even if you are only a child.

The weather was really nice, so we had a lot of talking as we picked up plastic, empty cans, paper, cardboard and bottles etc. from the side of the road.
It very quickly turned into some competition about who could find the most and both the boys really enjoyed it.
We talked about the dangers of broken glass for dogs and other animals, and how long some materials would stay in the nature before being degraded.

I once saw a TV interview with a woman from a development country, and she had seen a small film from an industrialized nations dump site. She said that if they only had such high quality garbage in her country, she could better make a living out of sorting the garbage compared to what could make of it at that time. It made an impression of me, that what we see as waste is considered a resource to others.

But I suppose that I feel the same way regarding pallet wood and scrap metal.

Anyway, it feels good to have done a good deed for the environment and the nature. And in addition to it having had some real quality time with the children.

I wish I could say that we didn't have a lot of litter in the side of the road, but unfortunately it is not the case. It is pretty common to drink a beer while driving, and throw out the empty can once finished. Drinking while driving is not a criminal offence in Denmark by the way, as long as you don't exceed the 0.4 per mille alcohol content in your blood.

Here in the U.S. you cannot have any open containers in your car, not that it always stops people from doing it, but in any case it's illegal. I don't drink much anymore, but when I do I won't drive at all. It's not worth it.